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Q&A With 'Real War : Rogue States' Developer Jim Omer

A few weeks ago we sat down with Jim Omer during a presentation of their just released Real War sequel, Rogue States. Unfortunatly the interview was put on the backburner due to the imminent release of the title, but not forgotten. Here it is...

1. Who has the honor to talk to us? State your name, rank and occupation! Original Real War developer or fresh blood?

Jim Omer, Lead Designer and original Real War developer.

2. Tell us a bit more about the Rogue States story? Does it pick up after Real War? What happened?

NATO's officials today confirmed that a secret weapons research facility located in Reims, France, was destroyed by unknown forces. This confirmation is the latest in a recent wave of attacks that have occurred in Europe, North America and Asia in which advanced weapons facilities have been attacked by highly organized troops. These attacks, which apparently focus on the capture of advanced biological and chemical weapons, have resulted in over 1900 deaths in the past 4 months.

Sources within the pentagon suggest that the organization behind these attacks is none other than the International Liberation Army, which had previously been believed destroyed.

Last year's conflict between the United States and the terrorist forces known as the Independent Liberation Army (ILA) seemed to end after U.S. Forces won a series of decisive battles culminating in the destruction or capture of all known ILA forces. However, recent information suggests that the ILA General believed to have perished in "Operation sand strike" may have survived with the assistance of unknown allies.

Rumors have intensified in the past week, as it appears that the ILA may have found a sponsor among the governments known to be friendly to extra-governmental organizations in the past, but the precise relationship remains undetermined at this time.
Both NATO and the U.S. State Department refused to comment on this allegation, but an article posted on NATO's website directly addressed this contention:

3. What sort of multiplayer platforms are you planning to support? For example TCP/IP, Internet via Gamespy, in-game browser or the like?

Yes, Rogue States is playable thru TCP/IP and Gamespy.

4. Will there be an editor packaged with Rogue States so people can make their own maps, or are you planning to implement your current BETA map editor?

Rogue Stats will not ship with a map editor. We are discussing the release our in house beta map editor.

5. Is every unit based on real world and/or experimental hardware? How about the buildings are they modeled after accurate buildings one would encounter in a real combat situations?

Nearly all units are based on real world units, although some are loosely based on experimental weapons technology. For the buildings we tried to have them have the same look and style of what actual military buildings, but did not pay specific attention to building dimensions

6. What has been improved to the graphics and/on graphics engine? What additions have you made to make this a worthy successor (if any)?

A great amount of time was spent on fine-tuning the graphical engine. The engine was adapted to support increased poly counts for all units 50-60%.

7. In multiplayer/skirmish mode can you control every rule/option?

Multiplayer has also been substantially expanded in Rogue States. There are new maps and unit skins, but the biggest change relates to the new alliance play and component commander multiplayer modes. Players can also cap the number of units, which is recommended when Broadband connections are not available.

8. What is the current state of Rogue states? When can we expect it in stores?

Rogue States should be in some stores now.

9. Will there be a demo released prior to the game appearing on shelves? If so, when? If no, why not?

Yes, there will be a demo released very soon. Next 2 weeks.

10. Is Rogue states a stand alone or add-on? Will it include the original game? Will it update the original Real War missions/engine in any way?

Rogue States is a stand-alone expansion and will not include the original Real War game.

11. Since Real War is based on the Joint Chiefs of Staff training game for the U.S. military, were there any rules you were required to follow when developing Rogue states in dealing with classified military hardware? Are any of the missions based on some real life event or war?

Our relationship with the military has allowed us to work and interact with military experts but we do not deal with any classified information or hardware. The missions in Rogue States are all fiction and are not based on any real life events.

12. Can you elaborate on your new advanced orders AI? What is it planning to bring to the table that current AI’s are lacking?

Many units can acquire special standing orders. For example, standing orders for a soldier instructing him to attack enemy Special Forces will allow for greater flexibility in attacks without requiring tedious micromanagement. That soldier will attack all enemy Special Forces units in the area. However, these special orders only become available after the construction of the appropriate strategy center.

13. How many players will multiplayer games be able to support?

Rogue States will allow for 4 player game-play utilizing GameSpy for Internet play. LAN and direct IP connections will also be enabled.

14. Where will most of the battles take place in single player? Will they be spread out across the globe? Or confined to one region? Are single player/multiplayer maps different?

All of the Rogue States battles take place in Europe, North America and in Asia. There are only a few maps that are used in both single player and multiplayer.

15. Will there be different camera angles? Or will it be a fixed angle?

Camera angles will be similar to Real War, fixed angle.

16. Will you be implementing any kind of camouflage for your buildings and units?

We have added some new “skins” to the units and buildings of which the player can chose from.

17. What did not make it in the original Real War that ended up in Rogue States? And why? Is there anything in Rogue States that you would like to have added and didn’t make it? What and why? ;)

The Component Command feature is something we’ve been working on for a while now and originally hoped to get into Real War. We all know that time constraints happen in every game, its just a given in this industry, unfortunately. We are actually very happy with Rogue States and we were able to implement just about all the features we wanted to.

18. What specifically have you learned from the Real War feedback? What irritated you guys the most, and what flattered your egos?

Although it is difficult to pinpoint specifics, we have gained a lot of experience from the feedback from the press and fans of Real War. We have been able to fine-tune many of the game play and AI issues. Real War was our first commercial game so the actual numbers of people playing Real War was flattering to us.

19. Anything else you would like to say about Rogue States?

We are confident that the fans of the original Real War along with new fans will be very happy with Rogue States.